Sachsen on Thames

After a few months without any naval visitors we have seen around a dozen over the past month or so. The latest visitor has been the German air-defence frigate F219 Sachsen, which arrived on Thursday afternoon for a short stay in London.

F219 Sachsen is manoeuvred towards the lock

The Sachsen was the first of three frigates in her class and was built at the Blohm and Voss shipyard in Hamburg. The long range radar systems give the ships an appearance reminiscent of the Royal Navy’s Daring-class air-defence destroyers. However, the Sachsen is a good five years older, having launched in January 2001.

F219 Sachsen leaves West India Docks

The short stay of the Sachsen came to an end this afternoon with two tugs (Svitzer Cecilia and Svitzer Brunel) on hand to assist the warship on her way out of West India Docks. It was a time consuming exercise with one tug passing through the lock, followed by the warship and the second tug. She finally made it into the Thames around 6.30pm. The conditions were pretty gloomy but I tried a shot or two…